After more than four decades in the workforce, I retired two years ago. I’ve had time to reflect — not just on my own career, but on the country I’ve lived in, worked in and tried to contribute to over the years. Like many Americans, I’m deeply concerned by President Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks on universities like Harvard.
I graduated from college in the 1970s — nothing fancy, a solid public university — and that degree helped open doors for me. It didn’t hand me success, but it gave me tools: to think, adapt, work with people from different backgrounds and grow in a rapidly changing world. It gave me a shot.
What worries me now is watching the idea of higher education — once considered a cornerstone of American opportunity — turned into a political punching bag. Trump isn’t just critiquing policies. He’s undermining trust in the very institutions that help people rise, innovate and lead.
We didn’t get to where we are as a nation by turning our backs on education. We got here because we invested in it. Because we believed that a farm kid from Iowa or a first-gen student from the Bronx deserved the chance to study, question and contribute to society.
I’ve watched many of my own children and their peers attend universities —some elite, some local — and come out energized to make the world better. That’s not something to mock. That’s something to protect.
If we let this anti-university rhetoric take root, we risk more than just campus reputations. We risk weakening the workforce, dulling our competitive edge and closing doors for future generations who deserve every chance to succeed.
Higher education helped build the life I’m proud to look back on. I hope we’re wise enough to ensure it’s there for the next generations to build theirs.
Jill Langendorff Folan, Hyde Park
SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of approximately 375 words.
Tax credits for kidney donors
Nicole Leonard’s recent op-ed on the urgent need for more living kidney donation resonated deeply with me. I recently donated a kidney to a stranger, an experience that was physically demanding, emotionally rewarding and absolutely life-changing.
As a constituent of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill, I urge her and all members of the Illinois congressional delegation to co-sponsor and champion the End Kidney Deaths Act, H.R. 2687, a bipartisan pilot program that provides a refundable tax credit to people who step forward to save a life through kidney donation. In Schakowsky’s district alone, nearly 1,000 people are on dialysis, and 16% die each year from kidney failure.
As a licensed clinical professional counselor, I understand both the emotional and practical burdens of this disease. This bill would remove financial barriers, increase donations, save lives and reduce taxpayer costs by up to $37 billion in the next decade. With the End Kidney Deaths Act, we could save 100,000 lives and potentially $37 billion. Illinois should lead with compassion and common sense.
Alison R. Toback, Evanston
Conservative proposal
I stumbled across the Sun-Times apology for some artificial intelligence-generated content that recently ran in the newspaper. I’ll be honest. I didn’t see it. And if I’m more honest, I’ll tell you I rarely read the Sun-Times anymore, and I worked there as a circulation driver for 30 years between 1979 and 2009.
You don’t endorse candidates anymore. You don’t write editorials anymore.
For some of us who enjoy news coverage and analysis, those are important things.
If I may be so bold, I’d like to make a suggestion: Ditch the far-left slant that your editorials took (before you stopped writing them) and current news coverage has, and start to adopt a more conservative approach.
There are plenty of local conservatives the Sun-Times can use to write regular guest columns — Dan Proft, John Kass, Paul Vallas and anyone at the Illinois Policy Institute.
I’m not saying a Donald Trump/Matt Gaetz-type conservatism. Moderate sensible conservatism. And why not?
It will give readers a different perspective and view that the present far-left administration in Chicago and Springfield is heaping on all of us.
“Speak truth to power,” as progressives like to preach.
It’ll be something new and fresh and will give people a reason to look at the newspaper again.
Tony LaMantia, Logan Square
A vote for Emanuel/Kinzinger
I agree with Sun-Times reader Jim Newton on his suggestion we go for a Rahm Emanuel and Adam Kinzinger ticket in 2028. I even wrote to Kinzinger in 2024 asking him to run against Donald Trump. He has shown he can work both sides of aisle. I’ll keep praying we have a ticket that can put sanity back into the Oval Office.
Virginia Dare McGraw, Naperville
More White House musings
Jim Newton proposed an interesting pairing for the 2028 presidential election. I’ve thought of such a pairing myself. My idea would be a pairing of Adam Kinzinger/Liz Cheney or Cheney/Kinzinger. Both have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Constitution comes first above all else. It is what we need more than anything before the current administration sinks it in quicksand never to be seen again.
John Farrell, DeKalb
Dead-wrong attitude
MAGA Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa responded to constituents’ concerns about Medicaid cuts with the remark that, if it means people are going to die, well, “we all are going to die.” This was not a case of misspeaking, since the next day she proudly owned up to it. So it is now plain as day: The GOP attitude is, “Why should tax dollars be spent saving lives of the poor when they’re all going to die anyway?”
William Sellers, Lincoln Square
